Thinkers50 Curated LinkedIn Live with Ruth Gotian | Extreme High Achievers and The Success Factor

Our guest for this Thinkers50 Curated LinkedIn Live is Dr. Ruth Gotian. Ruth is the Chief Learning Officer and Assistant Professor of education in anesthesiology at Will Cornell Medicine and former assistant dean for mentoring executive director of the Mentoring Academy. Her research focuses on how and why some people thrive while others don’t. In today’s session, Ruth will share with us the secret sauce to success and the key behaviors of extremely high achievers.

Transcript

Monica Kaufman:
Hello, and welcome to Thinkers50 Radar 2021 series brought to you with LinkedIn live. My name is Monica Kaufman and I’m part of the team of Thinkers50 filling in for the hosts, Stewart Crainer and Des Dearlove. Thinkers50 is the world’s most reliable resource for identifying ranking and sharing the leading management ideas of our age. Idea that can make a real difference in the world. The belief in the power of ideas has been the foundation of Thinkers50 work since the launch of the first ever global ranking of management thinkers in 2001. Thinkers50 has published a new ranking every two years since, and it remains the premier ranking of its kind. So we are excited that 2021 a year in which fresh thinking and human ingenuity are more important than ever is also a Thinkers50 year. We have the rest of the year ahead of us to identify and promotes than you.

The brilliance, the world changing ideas coming from our global community of thinkers. Nominations are now open for both the ranking of management thinkers and the distinguished achievement awards, which the financial times calls the Oscars of management thinking. In the summer, we will have the award short list to saber [inaudible] on the 15th and 16th of November will bring all the excitement of a new ranking and the naming of our Thinkers50, 2021 award recipients. But we start the year with the Thinkers50 radar club. The 30 up and coming business thinkers to watch in the coming month. In this series of 30 minute sessions, we want to showcase some of those ideas to bring you to the new voices of management thinking. We want to inspire you to seize the moment to create a better future for you and your organization. Our guest today is Dr. Ruth Gotian, chief learning officer, an assistant professor of Education In Anesthesiology at Weill Cornell Medicine, former assistant dean for mentoring and executive director of the mentoring academy.

Ruth’s research focuses on how and why some people thrive while others don’t. In today’s session, Ruth will share with us the secrets of to success, the key behaviors of extreme high achievers. The [inaudible] today is that we have 30 minutes. Ruth will present her ideas for about 10 minutes, and then we’ll have some time for questions. We want to make this session as interactive as possible, so please share where you’re joining us from and ask your questions in the comments below as we go along. Now I’ll hand it over to you, Ruth. The virtual stage is yours.

Ruth Gotian:
Thank you. And hello everyone. And greetings from New York. I am so excited to be with all of you. I purposely did the presentation pretty short, because I really want to engage in conversation because I think that’s really how people learn. So, if you guys are ready, I would love to talk to you about what makes an extreme high achiever. So I study the extreme high achievers, which is what my research is all about. And it is what I teach about, it is what I coach about, it is what I write about, it is what I speak about, and it is what my upcoming book, The Success Factor is all about, because I realize that nobody really wakes up in the morning saying that they wish to be average. I really do think that people want to be successful, but there’s a hidden curriculum where we just don’t know how to do it. And I am here to really uncover that. So what I did, I was actually 43.

When I went back to school to get my doctorate and I wanted to study this, I wanted to really understand what makes people so successful. So I embarked on this journey to study some of the most successful people of our generation. And I have curated all of these interviews with astronauts and Nobel laureates and Olympic champions and fortune 500 CEOs and NFL Hall Of Famers and NBA Champions, all of these great high achievers, extreme high achievers to figure out what has made them so successful. Because I figured out that if I can learn this, I can really bring that blueprint out to everybody. And that is what I did. So I found out that these extreme high achievers had four things in common and these four things, the good thing is that they are all transferable to any industry. So really the astronaut is very similar to that Olympic champion.

They have those four pillars, those four things in common. And the first thing that they have in common is the passion for what they are doing. It’s something called intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation means you are doing it because you have this burning question inside of you that you really need to answer. And it’s what fuels you. And you would probably do it for free, if you could. Many of them actually do. This is why they wake up in the morning to get to work on this kind of topic. Now, this is different from extrinsic motivation, which is you’re doing it for that diploma, the promotion, the recognition, those are the people, those who are extrinsically motivated, those are the ones who fail out or burn out. Those are the ones that when there’s a real challenge, they just cannot muster that strength to overcome it.

So intrinsic motivation. That is what is so critical to really fuel that passion. So one of the first things that you need to do, and one of the things that I teach people how to do, if you really want to be successful, you have to figure out where that passion lies for you. So we actually go through a passion audit because once you understand your why, everything else blurs out, because you are able to be laser focused on what is important to you on your passion. The other is that perseverance. The road to success, it’s like an iceberg. The top is the success that everybody sees, but the bottom, all those trials and tribulations and challenges, that’s, what’s really hard for people. And that’s what people don’t actually see. So that road can be really lonely, but the people who are extreme high achievers, they have this work ethic, they have this perseverance, they have this grit that they will overcome any challenge so much so that when they see a challenge, they never question.

If it’s something they can over overcome because they know that they can instead where they put all of their energy is on how to overcome it. They know they will get over it around it, through it. They will get to the other side. So instead of wallowing and self pity on wondering, oh, this bad thing happened, they don’t question if they put their energy and their focus on how. So, that is the difference also for extreme high achievers, the focus on how they control what they can control and then all of their energy is on a plan. And then they execute the plan to how to overcome the obstacle. Now, the next thing is you can be as successful as you want to be. But if you don’t have a strong foundation, your world will crumble. So what does that mean? The Olympic athletes, the same drills that you see in the Olympic village are the same ones you would see in a junior high gymnasium.

They have that strong foundation and they’re constantly reinforcing it. It’s those drills that have made them so successful. That is their foundation. Now, granted, when you’re an NBA player, you are probably doing it with better gear and fancier sneakers and nicer gym, but those drills are the same. And that doesn’t matter if that’s, if you’re an astronaut that’s, if you’re an Olympic champion, a Nobel laureate, it’s all about having a strong foundation that you are constantly reinforcing. That foundation is critical because if that’s not strong, then the whole, your whole pyramid is going to crumble. So you really need to focus on that. And then the fourth pillar of success that these high achievers do is that they are constantly learning long after they win their accolades and they get those medals and they get their terminal degrees. They are still learning constantly. Now they’re adults.

They have a lot going on in their life, which means they cannot sit there in the classroom for eight hours a day. Adults were not built for that instead, they learn in informal ways. So when you hear about all the billionaires, like Mark Cuban and Warren Buffet, and Bill Gates who read anywhere from three to eight hours a day, that’s great, but that doesn’t work for everybody, really what they are doing. It’s not so much that they are reading that has made them billionaires. What has made them so successful is that they are open to learning from anyone around them. And that could be people who are senior to them at their level, their peers, and junior to them. And they are learning in informal ways. So sure they could be reading books, but they could also be reading articles, listening to podcasts, watching videos, watching webinars such as this one.

And they also talk to people, which means all of them have had mentors and not just one mentor, they’ve had a team of mentors that they can go to get perspective because they’re craving that feedback. Feedback for them is not a negative, feedback is an opportunity for enhancement. So they’re seeking it out. They’re constantly seeking new things that they can learn, and they do it in informal ways. So for them, a zoom meeting is a way to learn something new, which is why they crave it so much. So there you have it. Those are the four major pillars that make people so successful, but you can’t just copy and paste one person’s success and make it your success. What’s so great about this model is that it is transferable and it is customizable to your life. So for example, as I mentioned, the billionaires books doesn’t mean you need to read for five hours a day, but it does mean that you need to be open to informal learning.

It does mean that you need to find out in your area, in your industry, how you can build and reinforce your foundation. How do you constantly check what your passion is and is your passion today the same as what the passion was previously. And also, do you have that level of perseverance? Do you need to get back to your why to remember doing what you’re doing? How is it that you are approaching challenges? So all of those things together are really going to help you become more successful. So I am excited that I just laid out the foundation for you. And I am really excited to engage in a conversation about this and answer a lot of those questions, both on the extreme high achievement and on mentorship, which is that key component to success because it is something that everybody had. So we could stop sharing the screen now. And I think we can get into that conversation now.

Monica Kaufman:
Yes, Ruth, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us and thank you everybody for letting us know where you’re joining us from. We’ve got Dubai, Denmark, Poland, Portugal, Florida. Brilliant. I love how global audience we have.

Ruth Gotian:
Love it.

Monica Kaufman:
I also see we, we start to get some comments and some questions. Please add them as we go. So I’m going to kick off with my own question first. So you’ve been researching extreme high achievers, so Nobel laureates, Olympic champions, astronauts, fortune 500 CEOs. What made you interested in this topic so much that you decided to study it? Were you obsessed with success yourself? So you wanted to learn about the common things of these high achievers.

Ruth Gotian:
So I think it was really, it was a number of things that happened together. And I actually spoke with a good friend of mine last week who was really trying to tease it out of me. So I think it was a few things. I think it was where I worked and what I did for a living. I was surrounded by high achievers. I couldn’t even get a cup of coffee without running into two Nobel laureates. And I realized they were just everyday people, but they just found something incredible. And that’s how, that’s how it started. It started with looking at physician scientists. And then after I studied the physician scientist, because that’s the world where I was working, I became very curious to see if that’s something that was transferable in other industries as well. And remember, I was later in life when I decided to get my doctorate.

And that’s when I realized that success doesn’t have to be for other people, success can be for everybody. I just need to figure out how it is to do it. And I think I did, because I used a lot of those tools on myself and it’s a constant work in progress. That’s the other thing that I learned from them is that you don’t stop. Once you hit a goal, you just find a new goal to hit. So I think that’s really what helped in. And then I’ve just become obsessed with success. Once I started with one group, I just kept doing another group and another group and another group. And just to see if it really is transferable within all of these industries. And so far, it really is.

Monica Kaufman:
We’ve got a great question from Rebecca “Who are some of the people you interviewed, who really stood out to you and why?”

Ruth Gotian:
Oh, there are so many, well, let’s start with Dr. Tony Fauci who has been leading the COVID response for the United States. And I asked him what projects he chose and why he chose those projects. And he said, it’s interesting because he said to me the same thing that my mentor said to me years earlier, he said, “Do something important, not just interesting.” Do something important, not just interesting, because if it’s interesting, it’s interesting to you, but if it’s important, it has an impact. And why are we doing this? We’re doing this in order to have an impact in order to leave the world better than we found it. So to me, that was really quite remarkable. Another one was Apollo Anton Ohno, the most decorated winter Olympian. And we talked quite a bit about his what’s called a flow state and how he got into that flow state.

Because when you’re an elite athlete like that, you’re usually pulled out of school and away from your friends, you miss your prom, you miss your high school graduation. Everything is done separately. And there are all these people who don’t always want you to succeed. It’s so hard that you start to sometimes self sabotage your own success. And we talked to about ways, and I’ve seen this with lots of people, how they had overcome that in order to be so successful. And one of the things that I learned from that is when you have nothing to lose, because you’re already at the bottom, you might as well give it your all, because there’s no lower that you can go. So you might as well win. Why not? And then I thought for all of these challenges, they keep thinking, what’s the worst that would happen.

Well, if that’s the worst that will happen, I might as well try and try to win and try to be successful and try to attain whatever that next goal is. But what’s so interesting with all of these people. And this is if it’s the Nobel Laureate or the Olympian or the astronaut, the goals were never the medal. That was very evident. They never set out to win that medal to win that Nobel that happened because of these four things that they did, but that was never the goal. And in fact, every single Olympian, I say, so where are you keeping those medals? You know, show me your favorite. One of them had it framed everyone else. It was nowhere to be found. One has it in a brown paper bag in the sock drawer. One of them, Scott Hamilton, the American figure skater, the gold medalist. He gave them all away to the figure skating hall of fame. He gave away all of his medals.

So it’s never about the medal for them, because they all said to me that all of these winnings, and that’s also the Nobel and going to space and all of this, it is one chapter in their life. It’s not the entire story. And I found that to be incredibly fascinating.

Monica Kaufman:
Another great question from Alexandra from Poland, have you got any success stories where people started implementing your recommendations, what you’ve identified as the common traits and who have achieved success?

Ruth Gotian:
Yes, and that is the best part is when people start emailing me, because I leak out a lot of this stuff through my talks and the Forbes articles and things like that. And they tell me how all of a sudden there is this new level of success, because they are focused on their goal. And we talk about how to eliminate all of those distractions, which take away from your focus on your goal. So for example, I tell people, what is your next goal? Not the 10 year goal, not the 5 year goal, because your goal is not to get the Olympic gold or the Nobel that happens as part of what you did.

What is your next goal? Now make for example, a list of every committee and working group and special task force that you’re on. And if it doesn’t align with your goal, you need to either take a leave of absence or resign because you need to stay focused on your goal. And when you start to do these things, you will see that you become more and more successful. And I love when people send me those good vibes, as good stories of how it worked for them.

Monica Kaufman:
Brilliant. One other thing you touched upon was mentoring. And so when thinking about a mentor, we kind of naturally jump into a conclusion that it’s somebody older and wiser, but that’s not actually the case in today’s world. Is it?

Ruth Gotian:
No, not at all. So let’s even back up a little with that. Those who are mentored, there’s a lot of research on this. Those who are mentored, outperform and outearn, those who are not. So you get paid more, you’re happier in your job. You get more promotions. You publish more, if you’re in academia and you show lower burnout. All the research is crystal clear on this. And even with all the research, and even with all the talks, 76% of people say, “Yes, I understand that a mentor is good for you,” but only 37% of people actually have them. Why? Because people are looking for perfect. I hate to tell you perfect doesn’t exist. It just doesn’t exist. So people are looking for someone older and wiser. Well, those people are human, which means they have biases and they have blinders and they have perspectives from their own journey.

So if you really want to leverage mentorship, don’t limit yourself to one person, surround yourself with a group of people. And they can be like the high achievers, people who are senior to them, their peers and people who are junior to them. So you can really have those three levels of mentors. And then you create a team, your own personal board of directors, but unlike a board of directors that always has to meet together, the people on the board don’t even need to know of each other’s existence. So you can cherry pick when you want to reach out to particular people and what perspective you want to get from them. So don’t limit yourself. Now, the latest research that came out is that the mentors, the best mentors, they’re not the ones teaching you skills from within your industry. So don’t look just for people who are within your industry, those skills you can actually learn on your own.

There’s a book you can read. There’s a YouTube you can watch. There’s a lecture you can go to. You don’t need your mentor to spend time teaching you how to do something so specific. What you do need your mentor for is that tacit knowledge, those traditions, those unwritten rules that nobody really talks about. If they can share that with you and they can share their network with you, then you have just one jackpot because that’s what the best mentors do.

Monica Kaufman:
So what’s the difference between mentoring and networking? Because to me, when you describe the superior mentor, peer mentor, and someone who’s junior to you, it almost sounds like it’s just having a really strong network. What is the difference?

Ruth Gotian:
So a mentor is really someone to help you with your career and they do it for the long term. They are there by your side. So they’ll say, “Monica, I think you should really apply for this opportunity. Let me go over your application when you’re done.” “I think Jane should write a letter of recommendation. Do you want me to reach out to Jane for you?” “You are now having a presentation that you’re giving. Do you want me to go over your slides with you, let’s practice your pitch” that those are the things that the mentor can really help you with. And they do that over your entire career. A network, those are people who you know, that can help you as needed, right, for different things. But a mentor is there for that full holistic approach. They actually have two main functions. One is the career development for you and the other is the psychosocial support. And that’s part of Kathy Kram work. So it’s helping you with your career and helping you with your motivation because challenges happen all the time.

And that’s, if you talk to a lot of the Nobel laureates, many of them are what are called the yellow berets. They were actually working at the NIH during the Vietnam war, and then decades later, the one that the Nobel, and when you talk to them, they had a really hard time when they were doing their research, things weren’t working. I mean, just like research today, things don’t work and their mentors will say one of their most important jobs was to be their cheerleader and help pick them up when they got upset, when things didn’t work out. So those are the two main roles of a mentor.

Monica Kaufman:
So you’re the former assistant dean for mentoring and executive director of the mentoring academy. Can you tell us a little bit about how it came about?

Ruth Gotian:
So I think a lot of it had to do with the research and we had a Dean who was very focused on mentoring within academic medicine, and then it was just there it was, and it happened. So we did quite a number of programs and we really focused on that organic mentoring, because I think when mentors are assigned, I have yet to see any research that shows that it’s actually successful. But when you are able to connect with people in an organic way, that is when things really click, you see who you connect with. And again, we now know that the research shows that these mentors who are the most successful are those that teach the tacit knowledge. So you really want to know who you gel with that is the most important part.

Monica Kaufman:
So for those watching us and thinking that it’s pretty incredible that your organization created a special department focusing just on mentoring. Can you tell us how one makes a case for a mentoring program? So Alexandra here is asking how, how do you pitch a mentoring program department, your boss?

Ruth Gotian:
So I think it’s really all about the research. The research shows that those who are mentored outperform and outearn those who don’t and for an organization, what is so critical is that it actually shows loyalty to the organization, because when somebody leaves an organization, they are really expensive to replace. And we are showing, especially that the high achievers are leaving because all too often organizations focus on those that fall below average. And that is right. Those people who are falling below average, they get all this support. They get corrective action plans, and nobody’s even looking at the high achievers. So what happens is the high achievers are walking out the door and if you want them to stay, because getting a new person is extremely expensive, not to mention the learning curve, you really want to focus on something that will really help develop them and their careers and all of the research is crystal clear on this, that this is actually something that proves to be successful.

Monica Kaufman:
So if your organization cannot provide mentorship programs and someone has to do it on their own, what’s your advice, how to go about it? Maria’s asking, how do you find a mentor? It’s a million dollar question, isn’t it?

Ruth Gotian:
Yes. And it’s something that I write quite a bit about. In fact, there was an article in the Harvard business review, where I wrote about how to find a mentor when you’re stuck at home. So I really think this is the opportune time to find a mentor, because people are home and people are able to talk to you more often. And I think the same way that you’re watching people here is the same way you can find people who are interesting. So you want to put yourself in a position where you can meet interesting people or you are not the smartest person in the real and start connecting with people. But the important thing is don’t ever ask someone to be your mentor, because the second you are asking someone to be your mentor, you’re asking them to take on another obligation and people don’t usually have that time because everyone’s plate is running over.

So if you’re asking me to be your mentor, I am just going to say, “Oh, I don’t even have the time. I don’t have time to answer my emails.” But if you said “Ruth, I am really interested in this. It relates to something that I’m doing. I was wondering if you had 15 minutes where I could just get your thoughts on something” that you’ll likely get a more positive response, because most people will be able to share 50 minutes to share their perspective on something. So I think that will really help you. Being called a mentor, someone doesn’t call themselves a mentor. The mentee has to call them that right at the beginning, because that will scare them away. Being called a mentor is a title that is earned. It is earned. Now you want someone to take you under their wing? Well then under promise and over deliver when you start to work with them because people want to be with winners. That’s why most Nobel laureates were actually mentored by other Nobel laureates, because they saw that spark and they wanted to really, really bring that person up.

So under promise over deliver, share, ask for perspective and make sure you’re not the smartest person in the room. So put yourself in areas where you can meet interesting people, participate in webinars, reach out to the speakers. If someone made a comment that really resonated with you in the chat, reach out to them, let them know why their comment really resonated with you. It takes gut sometimes to ask a question or to post a comment. So knowing that it resonated with someone will help them and it’ll help you and really start just developing that relationship organically and see where it goes. Don’t ask for anything at the beginning when you first meet someone, because remember you have to prove yourself. So it’s something that takes a while and it’s a relationship. You wouldn’t ask someone to marry you on the first date. Why would you ask someone to be your mentor? The first time you meet them, you have to develop a relationship because people like to mentor people who they know, like, and trust. So prove why people should know like and trust you.

Monica Kaufman:
You mentioned earlier that you had a mentor who’s made a big impact on your life. Let’s give them a shout out. Who are they?

Ruth Gotian:
I’ve had several. One of them is Dr. Bert Shapiro, who was in charge of all. He was one of the directors at the NIH in charge of all physician scientist training. And the other was Dr. Marie Volpi, who’s my 83, 84 year old now, doctoral advisor from Columbia. Who still has students that she’s advising. And to this day, I keep showing her my writing. When I have a new idea, I still bounce it off of her and we actually talk it out. And she’s actually the one that made me realize that they’re different mentoring styles, where somebody, I’m an avid reader. But when I have a question about something, I want to talk through the challenge where people were constantly sending me articles to read. And she was the one that said, “No, no, no, let’s talk this out until you’re you feel comfortable with the answer.” And every time on my way to work, we would actually talk on the phone so that I can talk through the challenge. So Dr. Marie Volpi and Dr. Bert Shapiro definitely [inaudible] shout out.

Monica Kaufman:
So you’re currently working on your book, The Success Factor, are you checking in with your mentors about the progress?

Ruth Gotian:
All the time and they are also, and it’s not just those two, because I also have a lot of peer mentors who are definitely cheering me on because writing is a very solitary act. And I’m telling the stories of some of these incredible people. And sometimes that gets really hard. So I definitely have those peer mentors who are by the side, who also helped me tease out ideas, because sometimes it’s clear in my head, but it doesn’t always come out clearly. So they help me with that as well. So I’ve got incredible mentors, people who are senior to me, people who are my peers and people who are junior to me, and they’re from different industries, completely different industries. And I think that’s what makes it so rich and so beautiful.

Monica Kaufman:
Brilliant. Is there anything else you’d like to share before we wrap up? We’re almost out of time.

Ruth Gotian:
So I’m really excited to meet with everyone. I think if people want to figure out how to develop their own mentoring team, I always like to leave people with nuggets. You can just go to ruthgotian.com/mentoringteam. And there’s a worksheet there for you. That’ll teach you how to develop your own mentoring team. And if you want to figure out what it is that you’re passionate about, so you can really work on developing your intrinsic motivation, just go to ruthgotian.com/passionoutit. And the book will be out in January.

Monica Kaufman:
Ruth. Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today. It’s been an immense pleasure.

Ruth Gotian:
Thank you.

Monica Kaufman:
Next week, we’ll hear from radar thinker, Ashley Gal Dudarenok. A prolific blogger and podcaster on modern Chinese consumers, Chinese social media marketing, and China’s new retail technology. I’m Monica Kaufman. Thank you for tuning in. Please join us. Same time, same place next week for more fresh thinking with the radar Thinkers50 LinkedIn live series. Thank you.